Time for Kerlikowske to Go

The pressure on Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske continues to grow as he’s accused of failing to discipline officers in several troubling incidents. One of the incidents occurred in 2005 in Capitol Hill, when Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes was beaten by police after his friend tossed something on the ground as they left a club. According to witnesses, the altercation began when Alley-Barnes questioned why the officer detained his friend over something so trivial. The Seattle Times reports on the incident:

Barnes and a group of friends were leaving the War Room, a bar on Capitol Hill, shortly after midnight on April 13, 2005. Outside was Seattle Police Sgt. Greg Sackman, who was on patrol there. A bouncer said he seemed “agitated” and had positioned himself directly in front of the door so people would have to walk around him as they left.

The bouncer, Tim Rhodes, later said one of Alley-Barnes’ friends apparently threw a piece of paper or straw into the gutter. When the officer pointed it out to him, the friend picked it up and apologized, Rhodes said in a court deposition.

Sackman decided to detain the man, according to police reports and other court documents. It was then that Alley-Barnes went up to Sackman and complained that he was harassing his friend because the friend was black, according to several witnesses.

The rest of the details are pretty hard to stomach:

In the Alley-Barnes arrest on Capitol Hill, a patrol-car dashboard camera captured audio but not video. The audio revealed inconsistencies in the officers’ accounts, according to court records.

Blows can be heard. A woman can be heard saying, “Oh my God!”

At one point, the 29-year-old Alley-Barnes — an artist with no criminal record — pleads with the officers to “please stop kicking me!”

Another voice can be heard saying, “That’s way too much!”

The charges against Alley-Barnes were dismissed because the city failed to turn over the video to defense attorneys, according to court and police internal-affairs documents.

In dismissing the case, Municipal Court Judge Jean Rietschel found statements on the tape “impeach the officers’ statements” because “there’s nothing on the video about the alleged commands that each of the officers said were said to Mr. Alley-Barnes” — including telling him to put his hands behind his back.

What the tape does reveal, the judge said, are “a number of very inflammatory statements made by police” about “arresting a black” and about Alley-Barnes getting in trouble because of his big mouth.

Another incident that is raising questions is the January arrest of a wheelchair-bound man named George Patterson for drug dealing. Video of the arrest shows officer Greg Neubert putting Patterson (who is paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident five years ago) in a lengthy choke hold and later putting things in his hood. Patterson claims that he didn’t have any drugs on him that evening and certainly did not have crack cocaine in his lap as the officers alleged. Since the incident, Chief Kerlikowske has been very aggressive in shielding the two officers from any scrutiny over the arrest, even though the charges have been dropped and the video reveals inconsistencies in the officers’ stories.

While the two dailies relied solely on the Seattle Police Department’s file on Neubert, we compiled our report by looking through court documents arising from Neubert’s arrest cases and by talking with Central District neighbors. (Neubert, 35, has worked the Central District beat for most of his nine-year career.)

Our reporting [“Court Documents Reveal Officer Greg Neubert’s Controversial History,” Amy Jenniges, June 28] found an alarming picture of an officer who physically and verbally bullied civilians, gave faulty court testimony, and–similar to Neubert’s current account about being dragged by Aaron Roberts’ car–complained that civilians were attacking him.

…

“I thought it was absurd to see how much he [Neubert] was praised here,” says Guy Thomas, weekend night manager at Philly’s Best Steaks & Hoagies at 23rd and Union, pointing to the Seattle Times write-up of the SPD’s records. Thomas, a tall 33-year-old black man, adds, “What I’ve heard from customers is not the same picture. It’s not a good picture.”

“I have friends that have been arrested by Neubert,” says Kisha McCraney, an 18-year-old black woman, as she gets into her car in the Philly’s parking lot. “One of my friends got pulled over by Neubert for no reason at all. He wasn’t speeding or anything. This was just a couple of months ago. He was on a back street, and when he saw Neubert he went onto a bigger residential street because he knows how Neubert is. Neubert came over, dragged my friend out of the car, and handcuffed him.”

When you consider the massive racial bias in drug arrests, it’s very clear that the SPD under Chief Kerlikowski disproportionately targets African-Americans. Occasionally, there can be justification for targeting certain neighborhoods because there are more complaints or a higher incidence of crime. But the numbers compiled by UW Professor Katherine Beckett are beyond what anyone can imagine as acceptable:

Though they account for less 9 percent of the city’s population, Beckett said yesterday, blacks make up 64 percent of those police arrest for dealing drugs. At the same time, her study found that the vast majority of drug users and dealers are white, not black.

Beckett’s findings also show that Seattle’s disparity is worse than any other similarly-sized American city. The idea of Seattle being a progressive city when it comes to dealing with issues of justice within the African-American community is largely a myth. And the picture of Chief Kerlikowske as someone unafraid to take on the problems within his department’s ranks appears to be mostly a myth as well. He’s had enough chances to deal with problem officers like Greg Neubert and to show that his department isn’t unfairly targeting African-Americans. He hasn’t.

And when you look at a case like Patterson’s, you also have to wonder how Kerlikowske can be aware of the details and not make the connection between how his officers acted that night and why African-Americans in this city are arrested for drugs at such disproportionately higher numbers. We’ll probably never know whether it’s cluelessness, apathy, or worse, but the NAACP is justified in calling for him to resign.

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Yes it is possible that the Stranger is correct, it is also possible thet their pieces on this topic are muckraking and racist. It is also plausible that the Medium is correct or that the swiftboaters were correct or the hillary conspiracies did happen ftom EITHER side. Hell who IS Netie sleeping wth today?

For the record, the Stanger article you cite also noted that the wheel chair bound man was a habitual drug user. Was he innocent? Was the cop innocent? It would be awfully nice if someone actually tried to investigate. Didn’t we used to have newspapers with real reporters?

Given the support the Chief is getting from numeorus pretty tough folks in the African-American community, I suspect that the Stranger is spreading muck.

I am sure you know this is a national issue and the answers nationaly are confusing. Part of the problem is the relationship of drugs to other crimes. I have known a number of Euro descended druggies, law breakers because they sold or used drugs, but .. because of affluence , not into theft, whoring, or other habit-supporting but illegal activities.

So, how does one deal with this?

Crack and theft, not to mention more violent issues are comingled in the African American community, Can the cops be expected to seperate these issues? I guess that would mean only arresting a supected perp for jay walking? Am I being sarcastic? No. Capone was nefver charged with murder, etc. “We” the good guys got him for tax evasion. On grander scale, Nixon was on the road to impeachment not for treason but largely for ptofanity. Libby, may he rot in jail, was caught for this cover up, How is tis different than the cops arrsting a pimp for possession of a few black crystals?

I find it very disturbing that “we” have such discussions withgut the particpation of the AA community. One reaosn I supported Clinton I and now and am Obmaa fan, is that both these guys .. I believe authentically … want o move beyond race issues to class issues (esp BO!).

In that context, do you know of any analysese that address the following quesitons:

1. What proprotion of pimps use drigs and is this different by racial identity?

2. Same issue for car thieves.

3, Same for people invlved in assault.

or …

European descended folks, some of whom I suspectr we both know, (incl Limbaugh), are druggies with the means to NOT steal TVs or sell twat. Of course the crime .. drug use, is the same. So, I guess we would need to have affirmative action drug enforcement?

Jane Balogh’s real crime [“Down, dog,” Times, Editorials, June 25] was in highlighting in such an outlandish way the inept and criminal administration of the voting “system” in King County.

Where was Acting Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg’s ire when all those mysterious votes showed up in the last general election? Where is the investigation into how something like this could possibly happen and why is it that you can register to vote and you obviously don’t even have to prove, in King County at least, that you are, in fact, human. Proving legality would be beyond the pale in this state.

Not only is Balogh an easy target, she is an embarrassment to those in charge, and we simply cannot have that on County Executive Ron Sims’ watch, now can we?

— Phil Bate, Lynnwood

The more I read about this Jane Balogh gal the more I like her. We need to encourage more citizens to get involved and in showing how corrupt KC government has become.

I’m surprised the citizen review board’s report doesn’t come up in this essay. An editor of mine thinks that it’s “getting into the weeds” to say that Kerlikowske lied in public when he exonerated Neubert and Tietjen on the basis of testimony of a witness WHO HAD REFUSED to give a statement UNTIL she herself got arrested for CRACK and Kerlikowske SPRUNG her from jail — over the immediate decision of the internal investigator in the case — IN EXCHANGE for a statement that contradicted the other witness at the scene.

If that’s not LYING, I’m not sure what is. Kerlikowske knew at the time he accused Troy Patterson of asking her to lie for him that he was relying on a COERCED statement that could not be corroborated.

@6 Schell wasn’t a great mayor and Stamper wasn’t a great chief, and Nickels isn’t as bad a mayor as you make out (yeah, he has a dictatorial style, but it’s arguably justified by a Seattle political culture that assures nothing gets done unless someone gets pushy), but Kerlikowski has turned into a shill for the police union and that’s not what we pay him for. His desire to get along with the union is understandable, but if he wants to work for them, he should quit his city job and go on the union payroll. Even one lying cop is too many, and a lying chief is something no city should tolerate, ever. It’s time to send him packing.

It was entirely predictable that Stefan, Doofus (aka Dan Blather), and the rest of the Dingbat! crowd would come out in support of a perjurer who registered her dog to vote. After all, the whole Republican Party has turned into a midway sideshow. The GOP is one giant clown act, and these idiots are the clowns. And they’re not even funny.

1. Balogh gave her dog a phony name in order to pass the dog off to the county as a person.

2. Balogh committed forgery when she signed the voter registration form on behalf of the dog.

3. Balogh committed perjury when she signed the attestation that the dog was eligible to vote.

4. Balogh lied to the phone company when she put her phone bill in the dog’s name in order to create a phony ID for the dog.

5. Balogh’s biggest lie of all was pulling the seamy stunt to “prove” there’s a voting fraud problem in King County. The only fraud who’s registering a dog to vote in King County is here. There was no registration fraud involving dogs until she came along.

Balogh is a piece of shit, and anyone who supports her is a piece of shit too.

During a 1983 family vacation, Mitt Romney put his Irish Setter into a dog carrier strapped to the roof of a tation wagn for 12 hours. Not surprisingly, das Hund lost control of its bodily functions and dog excrement was found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon.

There may be issues with Massachusetts’s animal cruelty laws but Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, called the incident “a lesson in cruelty. Thinking of the wind, the weather, the vulnerability, the isolation we are reminded that Romney also supports the export of US prisoners to Guantanamo where these folks, like Seamus his diogm were kept in isolation, in outside pens, etc. Now we do not know how many of the Guantanamo inmates shat their pants because of the exposure to the Cuban sun but perhaps they did so in response to “enhanced interrogation” techniques that Mitt so admires.

“WASHINGTON — West Coast Democrats called for a hearing Wednesday into the role Vice President Dick Cheney may have played in the 2002 die-off of about 70,000 salmon near the California-Oregon border.

“An article in The Washington Post on Wednesday said Cheney played a crucial role in developing a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River that courts later called arbitrary and in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

“Democrats charged that Cheney’s action resulted in the largest adult salmon kill in the history of the West. … U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., whose district includes the area where the fish died, said … ‘We know that science was manipulated and the law was violated …. Did in fact the vice president of the United States put pressure on midlevel bureaucrats to alter the science and circumvent the law … ?'”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Northwest electricity ratepayers are being charged billions of dollars for salmon restoration, and landowners are bearing additional large costs through restrictions on timber cutting and agricultural uses of land in efforts to protect salmon habitat. Then along comes cowboy politics to wipe out a whole river in order to make a small group of Republican voters happy. The direct economic loss to coastal communities was tens of millions of dollars; the indirect economic costs and losses far greater. If Cheney’s fingers are in this, we should take it out of his pay. Better yet, let him work it off on a chain gang at 15 cents an hour.

There are few industries as heavily subsidized by taxpayers as western agriculture. Ranchers are given leases on vast tracts of grazing land at a tiny fraction of market value and for less than what it costs the government to manage the program. Taxpayers and ratepayers have paid countless billions of dollars for gigantic water reclamation projects, while the farmers who get 90% of the West’s water feel themselves entitled to free water forever. The average cost of providing publicly-financed irrigation infrastructure to Western farmers exceeds $2 million per farm. When you add in the public subsidies, most Western ranches and farms don’t make money. Nor do they produce very much of the nation’s food supply. For example, most American cattle are produced in feed lots, and most of those feed lots are located where there are ample supplies of corn; according to the EPA, the biggest beef-producing state is not Texas but Florida, and over 90% of America’s beef supply is raised east of the Mississippi River. The vast sums of public money poured into western agriculture buy very little besides the continuation of a lifestyle for a small number of people. We’d save a lot of money AND increase the food supply if we cut off the subsidies and gave the West back to grass and buffalo.

Naturally, all those ranchers and farmers prattle about “individualism” and describe themselves as “self-made” — and vote Republican. It’s all bullshit. They’re nothing without the mountains of government money that have been thrown their way, the latest example of which is the proposed $4 billion water reservoir in the Yakima Valley. Paid for courtesy of city folks.

Contrary to popular belief, the Columbia River dams weren’t built to generate electricity. They were built for two reasons: To create construction jobs during the Depression, and provide irrigation water to farmers.

The electricity was merely a byproduct of the dams. In the early days, BPA had more electricity than it knew what to do with it. When World War II came, the electricity became strategically crucial for aluminum and plutonium production, but its availability was simply a lucky historical accident. The dam builders neither foresaw nor thought about possible future war production.

The dams, then and now, first and foremost, provide irrigation water to farmers. They continue to be managed primarily for that purpose, despite the vastly greater importance today of their electricity output. And the irrigation projects aren’t justified by economics. They’re driven by politics, not economics. The kind of politics that says “gimme” at someone else’s expense. Freeloading politics. In a word, Republican politics.

1) Publican asswipes on this board and at other places always claim the military and the cops as their own so we operate on the assumption these cops were GOP
2) Publicans are always racists
3) Publicans love to bully people – so when they outnumber an unarmed man, they love to beat the shit out of him – this is the only time Publicans/cops get to feel like big strong men
4) Publicans like these cops are just plain cowardly – folks who if they didn’t have a badge, a gun and backup, would be down on their knees, begging to suck a dick rather than to have to actually confront someone on an even basis

Roger Rabbit says: @6 Schell wasn’t a great mayor and Stamper wasn’t a great chief, and Nickels isn’t as bad a mayor as you make out (yeah, he has a dictatorial style, but it’s arguably justified by a Seattle political culture that assures nothing gets done unless someone gets pushy) [emphasis mine]

PUDDYSTUPID: 17 TO 20 PERCENT OF PEOPLE IN SEATTLE HAVE AN R NEXT TO THEIR NAMES. I SEE THE SIGNS IN THEIR YARDS EACH ELECTION CYCLE. THEY ARE AS WHACKED OUT A BUNCH OF KVI/KTTH-STYLE RIGHT WINGERS AS YOU CAN FIND. EVER TWO YEARS THEY PUT UP A RIGHT WING NUTCASE TO RUN AGAINST JIM MCDERMOTT OR ONE OF THE STATE HOUSE POLS.

Yes it is possible that the Stranger is correct, it is also possible thet their pieces on this topic are muckraking and racist.

The Stranger is far from the only one reporting on this. The Seattle Times and the PI both reported on the Alley-Barnes story which was much worse.

It is also plausible that the Medium is correct or that the swiftboaters were correct or the hillary conspiracies did happen ftom EITHER side. Hell who IS Netie sleeping wth today?

Steve, there are these things called facts. They tend to help determine whether something is truthful or not. Considering that you’re a f*cking scientist, you should know this.

For the record, the Stanger article you cite also noted that the wheel chair bound man was a habitual drug user. Was he innocent?

So am I. Am I innocent? Does the fact that I like to smoke pot give police the right to abuse me and make up false claims about having drugs on me?

Was the cop innocent? It would be awfully nice if someone actually tried to investigate. Didn’t we used to have newspapers with real reporters?

Are you an idiot? Read through the links. We did have an investigation. A civilian oversight board investigated and found that the officers lied. Chief Kerlikowske didn’t even wait for the investigation to be completed before he exonerated his officers. We do have real newspapers with real reporters. The problem is that when those real newspapers report on this, idiots like you call them racist.

Given the support the Chief is getting from numeorus pretty tough folks in the African-American community, I suspect that the Stranger is spreading muck.

I am sure you know this is a national issue and the answers nationaly are confusing.

I wouldn’t say they’re confusing as much as they’re alarming.

Part of the problem is the relationship of drugs to other crimes.

This is true in a sense. The illegality of drugs leads to the creation of large scale criminal organizations, which in turn leads to an enormous amount of crime (murders, money laundering, etc). Addicts, being forced to buy their drugs at inflated prices in the black market, often steal in order to support their habit, so that’s a second place where it produces crime. What most people don’t understand is that the crime results from the illegality of the drugs, not from the drugs themselves. If the drugs were made legal, the crime surrounding drugs would mostly disappear.

I have known a number of Euro descended druggies, law breakers because they sold or used drugs, but .. because of affluence , not into theft, whoring, or other habit-supporting but illegal activities.

Most drug users in this country are white. If you look at the percentages, roughly the same percentage of people in each ethnic community use drugs. The amount of people who steal or break other laws (like dealing) to support their habit is obviously related to affluence.

So, how does one deal with this?

We end the goddamn drug war and take the markets out of the hands of criminals.

Crack and theft, not to mention more violent issues are comingled in the African American community, Can the cops be expected to seperate these issues?

Less than 50% of crack users are black, and rates of theft are not related to race in any way. Poor white areas have as much theft as poor black areas. The one issue that is worse in the black community is homicide. The reason for this is because three years of the drug war has ended up with every major city having drug distribution rooted within its African-American community. And the competition between drug gangs quickly leads to violence.

Illegal black markets like cocaine distribution find the path of least resistance, and the black communities across this country have invariably been the place where people are most desperate and willing to break the law for money. This is not a cultural failing, but more a result of how drug law enforcement in black communities over the years has made it increasingly difficult for people in these communities to find legitimate work or get an education (not an easy thing for someone with a felony on his record).

It’s not a matter of cops “separating” the issue, it’s a matter of recognizing that the idea that many had in the 80s that aggressively enforcing drug laws would help the black community were absolutely wrong. When cops target black communities to enforce drug laws, they hurt those communities. I don’t really care if some leaders in the black community don’t agree with this (as I know many do). Recently, the mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker, had this revelation. He’s a Rhodes Scholar who took over as mayor determined to fix Newark’s massive homicide rate. He’s now blaming the war on drugs, as he should.

I guess that would mean only arresting a supected perp for jay walking? Am I being sarcastic? No. Capone was nefver charged with murder, etc. “We” the good guys got him for tax evasion.

Right, but the overall crime wave that Capone was a part of was not stopped by his arrest. It was stopped when we made alcohol legal again. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia called alcohol prohibition a war on ethnic minorities, because it was an excuse for police to target the minority communities under the guise of keeping them safe from bootlegging. What’s happening in Seattle today is the same thing, except with different illegal substances.

Libby, may he rot in jail, was caught for this cover up, How is tis different than the cops arrsting a pimp for possession of a few black crystals?

This goes way beyond “pimps.” For someone who claims not to be a racist, you tend to have very stereotypically racist views of the African-American community. The reason that aggressive drug law enforcement does damage to the black community is related to something I explained when we were talking about the Federal Way case. There is no drug out there that does more damage to your future than a trip through the criminal justice system. A kid from a black community who gets arrested at 18 for having drugs is not helped in any way by that arrest. And the community at large is not helped either because now that kid is likely to have a felony on his record and will find it considerably harder to go to school or get a real job. In the end, all you’ve done is made it more likely that at 25, he’s be a full-time drug dealer. How does that help the black community in any way? But I guess this is where you end up if you think that the solution to Al Capone was to arrest him. You don’t even have the basic understanding of alcohol prohibition and how it worked.

One reaosn I supported Clinton I and now and am Obmaa fan, is that both these guys .. I believe authentically … want o move beyond race issues to class issues (esp BO!).

And Obama will fail miserably at it if he doesn’t figure out that we need to end the drug war. Bill Clinton failed at it during his time in office. The racial divide in this country is worse than it was in 1992. The racial disparity in our prison poulation is widening, even as the class disparity becomes less racially divided. Even as blacks in this country get wealthier, they are still seen as a criminal class. Obama, or whoever wins in ’08, can not fix this problem without dealing with the drug war.

In that context, do you know of any analysese that address the following quesitons:

1. What proprotion of pimps use drigs and is this different by racial identity?

Are you kidding me? Is this a serious question? Do you really think that the black community is full of pimps and ho’s, like some bad 1970s movie? C’mon.

2. Same issue for car thieves.

The major factor in whether someone is a car thief is economic. There’s no racial factor.

3, Same for people invlved in assault.

Violent crime is higher in black communities for the reasons explained above involving where drug markets have become based.

European descended folks, some of whom I suspectr we both know, (incl Limbaugh), are druggies with the means to NOT steal TVs or sell twat. Of course the crime .. drug use, is the same. So, I guess we would need to have affirmative action drug enforcement?

In a sense, that might be the fastest way to end the drug war. If you sent cops into every college campus across the country tomorrow and enforced drug laws the same way that they’re enforced in the black communities, the drug war would end tomorrow.

James Kelley is anything but a Tom. He is a very aggressive guy To coin an unoriginal phrase, thsi issue is noit simply black and White.

If I may elevate this conversation from the pits, it wold do a lot of folks good if we could get the white libheral community together with more golks from the AA community. Having lived and worked in both, I find the need for “exposure” truly dreadful.

Lee … did you read thiis Tuesday’s NY Times Science section? There is an excellent .. if brief .. discussion of the new word for race .. descent.

The problem, of curse, is that AA are not “African by descent” or “negro” any more than they are Kansan, Carribean Indian, American Indian, or whatever.

I read an interesting speculation in Time about Tiger Woods having political ambition. Would it not be hilarious if the first Kenyan-American president appointed a Thai-American to be Ambassador (to China?) and no one called either one a Black man?

BTW,

If yu have not read the Times, let me know and I will bring it to DL for you. I saved it.

Who are yu fighting with onj this? Not me. I agree that drugs are not the source of crime in the Black community. What is your point?

My point is that it is simplistic to think that law enforcement works through the cops “catching” perps for one crime. Libby ain’t going to jail for treason, even if he did commit a treasonous act that led to the crime that he was convicted for. Indubitably many pimps and thieves get busted for drugs.

Does the drug trade cause crime? Surely you are not going to claim it does not. Does the war on drugs cause more crime? I. like you, think it does. So does that mean a cop should not use cocaine possession as a tool t catch a bad guy? The logic of that argument is too subtle for a Seattlejew.

I for one would like t see Lee post his thoughts on how he would reform the drug effort. At the fringes, some issues seem easy t me .. e.g. drugs that are no worse than tobacco or coffee (e.g. pot) ought to be regukated but legal. Imagine what would happen if we tried to outlaw Starbuck’s!

It si more difficult to figure out how best to deal with drugs that are truly harmful.

As a scientist one step I wold like is honesty in advertising. The govmnt should stop equating habituation with addiction. Tellign kids that pot is a demon is a good way of undermining their fiath in anything you say.

I have more trouble figuring out what to do about the more harmful drugs. like chocolate.

Don’t think so. Nor do I call othersa stupid names like that. Poor way t win an arguemjtn unless you are trying to be O’Reilly?

If you want me to stop calling you an idiot, stop saying completely idiotic things. Referring to people in the black community as “pimps” is an idiotic thing to say. If you complain about why actual reporters haven’t been looking into this when the Seattle Times, the Seattle PI, The Stranger, and the Seattle Weekly have all covered aspects of this story, then you are very clearly an idiot.

If I may elevate this conversation from the pits, it wold do a lot of folks good if we could get the white libheral community together with more golks from the AA community. Having lived and worked in both, I find the need for “exposure” truly dreadful.

We have. As I mentioned in the last post, we just recently had a large gathering in Rainier Valley to call for the end of the war on drugs. Your link there didn’t work for some reason, but I’m not surprised that there are some people in the black community who don’t get this. That’s fine, we’ll just fix this problem with those who do.

The problem, of curse, is that AA are not “African by descent” or “negro” any more than they are Kansan, Carribean Indian, American Indian, or whatever.

Of course not. This is what your UW colleague was trying to explain to you in that conversation you posted on your blog last December.

Does the drug trade cause crime? Surely you are not going to claim it does not. Does the war on drugs cause more crime? I. like you, think it does. So does that mean a cop should not use cocaine possession as a tool t catch a bad guy? The logic of that argument is too subtle for a Seattlejew.

But they don’t use it as a tool to just catch bad guys. They use it as a tool to put every black person they can find into jail. Has it gone over your head that in the George Patterson case, the two cops very clearly lied about Patterson having crack-cocaine in his lap? Why did they do that? Because many cops out there don’t use cocaine as a way to catch bad guys, they use it as a way to put every black person they can find in prison. If you don’t think that this is a real phenomenon, you can see the numbers here.

It’s good that there’s an understanding on your part that the drug war is a failure, but I have no problem calling out your idiocy when you continue to rely on outdated notions about the black community being filled with pimps, and then accusing those who don’t agree with those silly notions as racist.

I for one would like t see Lee post his thoughts on how he would reform the drug effort. At the fringes, some issues seem easy t me .. e.g. drugs that are no worse than tobacco or coffee (e.g. pot) ought to be regukated but legal. Imagine what would happen if we tried to outlaw Starbuck’s!

I’ve been writing about it for the last two years at Reload, and I’d actually really like to go on Goldy’s show again and take this topic on. I believe that all drug use should be legal, but unlike many hardcore libertarians, I believe the government has to heavily regulate the market (no advertising, no private sales, etc). The crime rate in this country would go through the floor if we did this.

Lee, the problem I have with your post is McCarthyism. You are impeaching Chief Kerlikowske the way the Hearst papers impeached the Spaniards or the wingnuts went after Bill.

I am mystified by your need to use name calling as a form of discourse. You want to call me an idiot? Tell you what I’ll do. I will respond by being respectful. Hopefully I won’t transmute into Lilly Tomlin.

Your charge of idiocy was because I said there were Black activists disputing disputing the NAACP. I referred you to the comments by James Kelley. Kelley has been a very active guy and currently heads the urban league Here is the most recent link I can find.

Kelly is a very aggressive guy. Try Google to read about his campaign at Ballard High. While you are at it you might Google Carl Mack, another long time activist in Seattle. The Seattle Times quoted Mr. Mack as saying the call for Kerlikowske’s resignation “is absolutely asinine. I consider him a brother in the strongest sense.”

I hope I have reassured you that I was not an idiot when I told you that the chief had support. A lot of good people, some of them teachers in my secondary school, others friends here in Seattle, had their lives fucked up by muckracking from the right in the McCarthy era. Lynching Chief Kerlikowske is stupid. If You really beleive he is a bad guy then do the work to show it, not cite yellow tinged newspaper.

I am not sure what you refer to in re my UW colleague but if you would like to see a more of less reasonable non-expert review of the current thinking about race, I recommend again this Tuesday’s NY Times. Let me know, I saved it thinking it would interest you so I cna bring it to DL.

The essence of current thinking is that the term race has become PC. OTOH, there are sizeable limbs in the tree of man and we know that some of the major branch points occured as people left Africa. Modern peoples can be traced genetically along these branches. For this reason, contemporary health research always considers “race.” The newish idea is to replace the r word with the d word, descent. So instead of talking about the Negro Race, we will talk about folks of African descent when we mean people recognizable physically and genetically as having thayt origin.

What complicates his matter is that we have made up some “races” in the US. Colin Powell is called Negro of Black. He is certainly partly descended from Africans but so are a number of people who we call white or Indian. My current favorite example is a visit by Barack Obama to his ancestors’ home in Ireland. The Irish press reported there was no trace of the O’Bama clan. The irony of course is that Clinton, Bush, etc all these white folks have celebrated their Irish descent.

Finally, it is important to understand that there certainly are, on a statistical basis, genes that are over or underrepresented in peoples depending on how long ago our ancesters did the Naughty together. Aakng questions about the inheritance of any phenotype is “just” science.

Lee, the problem I have with your post is McCarthyism. You are impeaching Chief Kerlikowske the way the Hearst papers impeached the Spaniards or the wingnuts went after Bill.

That’s ridiculous. The chief has done a number of things that have been well documented by the local media (especially The Stranger) that call his ability to lead this city’s police force into question. If I’m lying about any part of the record here, point out the lies. Otherwise, you can shove the McCarthyism talk back up your own ass where it belongs.

I am mystified by your need to use name calling as a form of discourse. You want to call me an idiot? Tell you what I’ll do. I will respond by being respectful. Hopefully I won’t transmute into Lilly Tomlin.

As I’ve said, if you want me to stop calling you an idiot, stop saying idiotic things. Calling people in the black community “pimps” is an idiotic thing, and you should know that.

Your charge of idiocy was because I said there were Black activists disputing disputing the NAACP.

No! It was because you said that the local media hadn’t investigated whether or not the cop in the January incident was innocent. The Stranger has written extensively on this case and discovered that the cops completely fabricated parts of their story. Again you’re accusing me of saying things I did not say. This is why I think you’re an asshole as well as an idiot.

I referred you to the comments by James Kelley. Kelley has been a very active guy and currently heads the urban league Here is the most recent link I can find.

And Josh Feit very astutely points out Kelley’s hypocrisy. A lot of times, people like Kelley put their own interests and ambitions ahead of those they represent. People of all colors and beliefs do it.

Kelly is a very aggressive guy. Try Google to read about his campaign at Ballard High. While you are at it you might Google Carl Mack, another long time activist in Seattle. The Seattle Times quoted Mr. Mack as saying the call for Kerlikowske’s resignation “is absolutely asinine. I consider him a brother in the strongest sense.”

And Carl Mack is dead wrong about this. He doesn’t even live here any more. The NAACP has actually had a pretty terrible record when it comes to understanding why bad policing has hurt the black community. They don’t understand the drug war and they’ve often blamed irrelevant factors (rap music, slang) as a way to avoid the real issues.

I hope I have reassured you that I was not an idiot when I told you that the chief had support.

I never said you were. I said you were an idiot because you accused the local media of not looking into a question that they’d already thoroughly answered and was the basis for my conclusion that Kerlikowske should step down.

A lot of good people, some of them teachers in my secondary school, others friends here in Seattle, had their lives fucked up by muckracking from the right in the McCarthy era.

That was in the 1950s. Today, 12% of all African-American males in their 20s have spent time in jail. That’s the human rights crisis in this country right now, and the percentages are often worse in blue states like Washington. Wake up. Nothing that McCarthyism did even comes close to what the drug war is doing today to our society.

Lynching Chief Kerlikowske is stupid. If You really beleive he is a bad guy then do the work to show it, not cite yellow tinged newspaper.

If there are inaccuracies or misrepresentations in the reporting that The Stranger or the Seattle Times (or PI) have done on this, then point them out. If you can’t, once again, you can shove the “yellow tinged newspaper” business up your own ass.

I am not sure what you refer to in re my UW colleague but if you would like to see a more of less reasonable non-expert review of the current thinking about race, I recommend again this Tuesday’s NY Times. Let me know, I saved it thinking it would interest you so I cna bring it to DL.

This is the post I’m referring to. What that New York Times article is saying is almost exactly what your colleague was arguing, but you kept telling him he was wrong. You kept trying to conflate race and culture and your colleague was pointing out the folly in that. That’s the point that the NY Times article is making as well.

Can you give me a link to your writing on drugs? I suspect we are on the same side here but have always been disturbed by the issue of how to legalize drugs. I would like to read your thoughts.

I’ll have to get back to you on this. I’ve written a lot but I need to see where I’ve talked more about how to move forward. Probably a good topic for a new post.

Years ago, Alexander King wrote in his book May This House Be Safe From Tigers about his experience from becoming addicted to morphine after surgery. He stated unequivocally that the people running the “war on drugs” have no intention of “winning” it. The reason? If they did, it would mean they’d have to stop being big shots and adrenaline junkies and live out their days doing plain old mundane honest work. I have yet to see much evidence to the contrary. The same thing appears to be the case with vice cops, and probably counterterrorism. The nature of the job is inherently corrupting and dehumanizing, just like the “menace” you’re supposed to be doing something about. Hey, if you were guy working as a cop, would you rather walk a beat looking for shoplifters or get paid to be titty fucked and then throw the stripper in jail?

If we are talking about Darryyl, he and I come form pretty much the same educated basis and if we did disagree it would certainly not be on the facts.

Here are the facts. The term “race” has been used and mieused but it does have enough meaning that it is routinely used or misused in the scientific literature today.

My stance, as a scientist was and is that there are major genetic choke points in our species, just as there are in any species that has undergone isolation of small groups ,, whether that is Darwin’s finches or the pigeon breeder’s fancy strains. It is, therefore reasonable to ask about any phenotype .. that is any heritable property. This includes intelligence.

Most of the criticisms of Herrnstein was McCarthyism. Of the sort .. he can’t do such as study because we know there is ni such things as race. In effect accusing this guy, who was NOT a bigot, of being a KKKer.

The time article obliquley refers to this when it discusses the appropriate semantic choice of “afro” descent rather than “Black.” As they point out the choice is maionly to avoid a PC problem, So instead of “race” we should refer to “descent” by continent.

I rather like the idea. After all, I am a not “white” but I am recognizably, as you are, of European ancestry. The irony of all this is that most African Americans are also partly of European ancestry. Whether anything to do with intelligence is associated with European ancestry vs. African ancestry is a valid if controversial question.

For what it is worth, some of the smartest people I have known are of European ancestry. It sis perplexing that it took the Euroes so much longer than ti took other races t develop civilization.

One thing about “race” in the Times piece startled me. They cited data that claim non-dark skin has arisen at least tow times. Once, about 40k years ago, in the origin pf Asians and once about 6000 years ag for the Euroes. Six thousand is a short time .. that would mean that the Cro-magnon were dark skinned and that the choke point happened after the choke point for the Semites … usually cited as something like 15K. In fact it would put the origin of “whiteness” after the origins of the Nilotic in Mesopotamian civilizations.

I certainly agree it is is a medical rather than a legal problem .. hell we do not jail people because they have AIDS. (they do so in Cuba though or did) or any other infectious disease unless it is communicable w/o choice. Imprisoning folks for being H addicted makes as a liitle sense os imperisoning someone for being infected with HIV.

Lees point son this issue are, I suspect, pretty close to my own POV. I would like to see any drug no more harmful than tobacco made legal to use. We should have some sort of sliding scale of control .. thus it is illegal to drive while drunk. I think it should be illegal to drive while over ceffeinated or oxycodeinated too. OTOH, there is not a lot of evidence that MJ needs ot be illegal at all … at least no more so than coffee.

Did you say the proposal from Melaysia to make MJ illegal except in cooking! Fabulous!

It is more difficult to decide abut drugs that are dangerous but not physically addictive .. like cocaine or psychotropic drugs that may have a range of effects. Personally I think people have a right to screw themselves up as long as they do not hurt others. Smoke if you want them is fine by me as long as I do not need to share your habit.

OTOH, any of us who survived the depressing years of the Bush II regime (2001-2008) will tell you that marketing is very powerful. So allowing coke or H to be controlled by a free market seems to me to be as dangerous as lllowing the coprorate few to control all talk radio.

@41Lee, it appears to me that you are automatically crediting anything claimed against Kerlikowski, and automatically discounting anything (and anyone) presented in his favor.

Ron, I’m actually holding back quite a bit, but let me present the very clear facts that lead me to conclude that Chief Kerlikowske should resign. If you want to challenge me on any of these, I’ll gladly defend each and every one of these statements:

1 – Seattle has an alarming disparity when it comes to the race of those arrested for drug crimes, which, according to research done by UW Professor Katherine Beckett, is the worst among all medium sized cities in the United States.

2 – Also according to Beckett, the disparity is not the result of difference in the usage rates of drugs by certain races. In fact, drug use and dealing is more prevalent among the white population in Seattle.

3 – A black man in a wheelchair was arrested in January by two cops, Greg Neubert and Michael Tietjen. Video of the incident posted by The Stranger showed the officer using a large amount of force considering the suspect is unable to fight back. The rest of the video isn’t conclusive as to whether or not Neubert planted drugs on Patterson, but details from the officers’ report does not match the video.

4 – Officer Neubert is known in the central district as a cop with a history of abusing African-American suspects and providing false testimony in court (also from The Stranger from 2001).

5 – Chief Kerlikowske exonerated Neubert of wrong-doing even before the civilian oversight board released their report.

Either explain which of those 5 facts are not really facts, or explain to me how this is not gross negligence by the chief? Drug law enforcement in this city is statistically more racist than in any other similarly sized American city, yet when a black man in a wheelchair claims that an officer planted drugs on him and roughed him up, and a video of the incident shows that he’s probably telling the truth and that the officers lied in their report, how can you maintain that there isn’t a problem when the chief’s response is to bury his head in the sand?

@43As for the word Pimp, I did not use it esp. for anyone of any race. I really think you shoeld stop the name calling. It serves no purpose.

This is what you wrote in comment #2:

Crack and theft, not to mention more violent issues are comingled in the African American community, Can the cops be expected to seperate these issues? I guess that would mean only arresting a supected perp for jay walking? Am I being sarcastic? No. Capone was nefver charged with murder, etc. “We” the good guys got him for tax evasion. On grander scale, Nixon was on the road to impeachment not for treason but largely for ptofanity. Libby, may he rot in jail, was caught for this cover up, How is tis different than the cops arrsting a pimp for possession of a few black crystals?

Lee, let me first note that your five claims, even if granted, do not begin to make an argument case for the Chief’s dismissal. The necessary contexts and connectives are absent; the bias is evident.

Next, just taking your point #1, you’re not referring to Beckett’s “Race and Drug law Enforcement in Seattle”, are you??? If you are, you’ve hit the zoom button on the aforementioned bias.

A few questions:
1. How many months did the study consider?
2. How long ago was that?
3. For how much of that interval was Kerlikowske Chief?
4. Who sponsored the study, and to what end?
5. Did the study really compare Seattle with “all medium sized cities in the United States”? What, specifically, were the comparison exemplars?
6. What was the interval over which these cities were compared?
7. For how much of that interval was Kerlikowske Chief?
8. Did the study really compare racial disparity among these several cities, or dids it something entirely different?
9. Were Beckett’s methodology and data sources generally accepted (or were they, as it were, “ambitious”)?
10. Does Beckett’s central explanatory finding (that SPD drug enforcement policy emphasized downtown open-air crack dealers) necessitate a conclusion of racial targeting? (And if so, how does that bear on Kerlikowske’s fitness as Chief?)

You say you are holding back a bit, but I suspect you are going eagerly off the deep end, in keeping with your abiding interest in drug policy (but out of keeping with a sober, responsible assessment of Kerlikowske’s fitness as Chief).

Plenty more where that came from, but I don’t think we’ll have to go there.

Ron,
Beckett’s data was presented recently at a forum on the drug war in Rainier Valley and it contained recent statistics comparing the racial disparity in drug arrests between different American cities. Seattle’s disparity was higher than any other city of similar size (this is not contained in “Race and Drug law Enforcement in Seattle”, so I have not “hit the zoom button” on anything.

I will try to contact Beckett and get more of the specifics for you on how the study was done, but it was presented as the current state of affairs in Seattle, not as a phenomenon from years past.

What I will grant you is that this problem is not just a Seattle problem, and the reasons why Seattle’s disparity is so great is because the black community here is rather small and has less political pull. The city with the smallest disparity was Detroit. But that is not an excuse for Chief Kerlikowske to be blind to the problem entirely. I expect more from this city and from its leaders.

I’m actually somewhat bothered by the notion that I have a “bias.” When I first moved here in 1997, I was actually very surprised at how professional Seattle police officers were. I went to high school in an area where police corruption was rather common (although I didn’t notice it so much until I was in college) and was surprised when I got here and didn’t see police officers who sold drugs or acted like complete assholes. Up until very recently, I’ve considered Chief Kerlikowske to be a good chief, and I don’t think that he should necessarily be blamed solely for the racial disparity in drug arrests.

However, reading about how he’s actually been going out of his way to shield officers from civilian oversight, and how he kept an officer like Greg Neubert around for so long even though it’s impossible to deny that he has a major problem with people of color, has made me seriously question whether he really cares about whether or not his officers treat the African-American community fairly. And to top that off, it was reported today that the officer involved in the Capitol Hill beating in 2005 also made bigoted remarks toward homosexual members of that community (as well as African-Americans), yet he was recently promoted. Is this just the way it works? Is the city’s police force just allowed to function like this because the chief is a nice guy? Someone needs to be held accountable for the behavior of our police. And if the chief won’t do it, you need to find a chief who will.

In a sense, maybe I do have a bias. I’ve actually lived somewhere where cops didn’t feel that they had to follow any rules or be subjected to real oversight. It’s not the environment you want. Especially if you’re black. But you’re not, so who cares?

As I said before, I did not use Pimp esp. for anyone of any race. YOU may have some hang up about pimps being of one race or another but the neares t nouns to my ref were Scooter Libby, a Jew (not somethig I am proud of).

Rhrowing accusations of “ims” around .. whether of me or of the police chief, is below your high standards on other issues.

Anyhow, no my friend, I would never conflate culture and race nor wa this waht the fellow was arguing about.

Like many uninfor4med non scientists of leftish leanings, he is preoccupied with the idea that “races” do not exist. The reasons for this concern are, as we both know, well placed. During the last few 100 years, racism has been used to justify slavery, cultural gen ocide, and literal genocide.

Moreover, non scientists are badly isled by claims that there is so much diversity in our species that no subspecies or races or breeds or whatever can exist.

Of curse this is not true. During our evolution, we have been resisolated form small founding populations numerous times, the most impressive of this seem to be related to the exist fro Africa and the populations of the continents. So, yes Africans are significantly different from Chinese, just as we can usually decide based on facial features. These genetic branchings are sufficiently importnat that the NIH rfequires a samplig on racial bases.

OTOH, both liberals and conservatives misuse racial terms. African Americans are obviously not a distinct race. Nor are Jews or Gtpsies or the French.

None of this, however changes the arguement you and I have had abut the concept of a people. We (jews) are a people just as the Samish, the Somsk, the abos of Australia, the French, the Ehtiopeans, and the Tamil are peoples. In some case, certain peoples do have a genetic heritage, For example orthodox Hinduism only allows a person to be Hindu if she can prove an origin from Hindues. In contrast the Kwakwawkwakwa have elected certain nion Indians as full memeres of their peoples. Even the French do this “naturalization” process.

Um, how about I post what you wrote to the front page of HorsesAss and have the commenters explain to you that I’m right? Deal?

Rhrowing accusations of “ims” around .. whether of me or of the police chief, is below your high standards on other issues.

I’ve been very reluctant to accuse the chief of racism. What I do know is that he is very reluctant to have any oversight on incidents where there’s a very strong indication that his officers acted in a way that violated the civil rights of African-Americans.

You are more than welcome to post whatever you want. However, before doing that READ it again.

with some spelling corrections.

“Crack and theft, not to mention more violent issues are commingled in the African American community, Can the cops be expected to separate these issues? I guess that would mean only arresting a suspected perp for jay walking? Am I being sarcastic? No. Capone was never charged with murder, etc. “We” the good guys got him for tax evasion. On a grander scale, Nixon was on the road to impeachment not for treason but largely for profanity. Libby, may he rot in jail, was caught for this cover up, How is this different than the cops arresting a pimp for possession of a few black crystals?”

Could the pimp in this quote be “black?” I suppose so .. that is in YOUR mind. Why would YOU make that assumption?

Do you know the saying, “Driving while Black?” This refers to the practice of po9lice arresting drivers simply because they are Black. I have had friends trated this way.

You seem to have some sort of similar problem with seeing others as racist. Could I call it, “Blogging while disagreeing with Lee?” This is why I warned you of McCarthyism. Throwing words like racist around is too easy.

The irony of this sort of thing is that on more substantive issues, I suspect you and I agree and where we do0 not I would like to learn from you. You know lots of things I do not and have obvioulsy thought more than I have in the drug issue.

One issue that might bring us together is how to get the AA and not-AA liberal communities together in Seattle. I have some ideas about this and would love to find allies in the effort.

I haven’t had time to read everything, but I think many have not extrapolated the implications of being able to get a voters registration with a phone bill. I begged for answers long before I decided to register Duncan to vote. Nothing! Registered him; wrote all our congressmen. Nothing! Having a voters registration opens the door for getting other legal documentation. Just what could be done by those truly wanting to break the law and more importantly; terrorists. This is a big can of worms being opened and they have come at this old granny with guns blazing, even making me appear in felony court for a misdemeanor amongst murderers in shackles. Charming! By the way, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat. They both have whored themselves to big business. I want to see an “American Party” representing patriotic Americans and what is best for YOU and ME.

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